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Gwmaw writes "A reported 98 percent of medical students surveyed at the University of Michigan and University of Wisconsin-Madison liked the idea of using technology to enhance their medical education, according to a study published online in BMC Medical Education. For example, a virtual environment could help medical students learn how to interview a patient or run a patient clinic. In the survey, 80 percent of students said computer games can have an educational value."

The problem with this approach goes back to BF Skinner [wikipedia.org] and his teaching machines in the 1950s. Essentially it is that all the interaction has to be scripted, and if you think about even the large free roaming games like GTA, all the key interactions are pre-determined.
The problem with humans is that they do not act in linear predictable ways, and that is what makes them so interesting, and challenging. A VR enviro

The funny thing is that the folks in TFS seem to be focusing on using games to do stuff that is very hard to do with computers, and very cheap(comparatively) to do with people, rather than focusing on the stuff that is relatively easy to do with computers and extremely costly to do with people.

Learn interviewing skills? Here kid, put this badge on, go two floors down, and watch real doctors interviewing the steady stream of people who won't stop coming through the doors. If you are just too nervous, go t

The Interactive Media Laboratory (IML) is part of the Department of Community and Family Medicine at Dartmouth Medical School. IML specializes in combining emerging technology with innovative instructional design. For over 18 years, it has produced high-end interactive multimedia educational programs for both patients and health care providers. Additionally, it has developed distance learning systems capable of delivering rich multimedia over the Internet.

What I find really interesting is that it's often not the complexity of games and interactions in games that drives adoption and success, but careful selection of course material, subject-matter experts, and good underlying layout and design. Although leisure games are often sold solely on the level of explosive interaction and realistic blood-and-guts, at the end of the day, so-called "Serious Games" (yeah, I think it'

I am surprised that it wasn't 100% that people would say a computer game can have educational value.

The difference is probably in how you interpret the word, rather than your opinion of the product -- for example, nobody would doubt that airline's high-tech cockpit simulators are useful for training their pilots, but not everybody would consider them a "game". Same goes for patient simulators.

Of course, the medical students would say that, I bet that business students would say the same thing about computer games for their field as well. Who doesn't like games? In any case, we know this method is attractive, now the real question is, can we make games that are good enough for those students to learn anything? And to some extent, I think that we will be able to, but only partly I believe. Making a good game is still mostly more an art than a science, and making a good game that will actually teach something will be doubly difficult.

Education itself is more an art than a science - and nothing in the entertainment industry is scientific - so I don't know where people would get the idea that ANY method could be better at teaching than others. (I mean if classrooms were SO effective than we wouldn't see dropouts).

Every individual learns in different ways, and sadly, those who don't enjoy learning in a classroom environment are the ones who fall behind. Video games make excellent educators for those who enjoy playing them, mostly because t

This seems like an unsurprising result given that a lot of medical students already use simulations in their training (everything from haptic simulators for laproscopic surgery, to mannekins that can be hooked up to medical equipment and have an operation performed on them, to role-play scenariors with actors playing the patients). Indeed there are plenty of companies selling video-based simulation equipment, and whole medical conferences on medical simulation for training.

In other news, 98% of golfers thought it might be helpful to practice their putting.

Consider this is robotic surgery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotic_surgery [wikipedia.org] virtual or not, as there is a digital interface controlling all the interactions between the doctor and the patient providing the surgical team a virtual representation of what is going on.

So in terms of teaching methods for robotic surgery you create virtual output for the doctor that reacts to the doctors inputs on the controls. So will robotic surgery by the dominant form with minimum patient intrusion and reduced infection

To me, the term 'game' implies both an artificial scoring system and a potential emotional pay off that a straight simulation wouldn't necessarily provide. The person who sponsored/did the survey in the first place probably has an agenda as it relates to games, otherwise he/she would just have chosen a more neutral word like 'simulation' to begin with.

> For example, a virtual environment could help medical students learn how to interview a patient or run a patient clinic.

Neither is a substitute for interacting with real patients or working at a real clinic. It may be less work for the medical student to play PC games, but for effective diagnosis you need to know what the patient looks like, how they walk, move, etc. How much are you going to get out of interviewing a Sim? Do these people think they can interact with a Sim the same way they would with

Do these people think they can interact with a Sim the same way they would with a real patient (other than a pre-canned script)?

Sure, because I am positive that the programmers will introduce the "baby won't stop crying and mommy is getting mad", "mommy's hidden agenda is a prescription of amphetamines", "daddy has an STD and doesn't want mommy to find out", "teenage daughter is making eyes at you and is trying to seduce you because she's drawn to the lab coat, position of authority and social status and ca

I personally worked on this research project some during my undergraduate years - in particular, the mentioned Cranial Nerve 3 case. Long story short, the project completely simulates a Standardized Patient interaction for the medical students, complete with life-size display and standard questionnaire.

The trick is finding the correct balance between education and entertainment. Edutainment companies haven't seemed to be that effective. Edutainment seemed to be such a gimmick that few people put real effort into doing it right. Even the big hope of Leap Frog tended to fizzle out.

The one thing I remember being super effective for me was a math game for TI-99 where you counted, added, and subtracted. You got a "reward" of a small cut scene(been so long I forget it) if you got things right. I played

I swear, people have zero problem remembering the route to take to get the Candle of Light, or the way to properly invoke the Dark Gem, or the way through the minefield to get to the German prisoner. Just make a popular game with the Ring of Shining replaced by the ring finger and the Pyramid of Peril replaced by the pyramidal tracts, and six months later you'd have people who know medical science backwards and forwards.

I like that 98% said they want to use technology for medical education, but only 80% said games had an educational value. There's an entire 18% that just want to put down the books and play a video game; they don't even care if it helps.

Description: A group of stevedores has recently done some heavy lifting without proper safety gear and without warming up. You need to physically examine them to weed out workmen's comp malingerers.Objectives: You are to properly diagnose and repair 5 simple hernias and one infarcted hernia.Rewards: 24000 experience points and $100,000 billed to insurance.ACCEPT DECLINE